"An opera would be desirable, I confess; of courts I know nothing, unmarried females being cyphers in Europe; and I hope better things than to think I shall be without society."
"Unmarried females are considered cyphers too, here, provided there be enough of them with a good respectable digit at their head. I assure you no one quarrels with the cyphers under such circumstances. I think, Sir George Templemore, a town like this must be something of a paradox to you."
"Might I venture to inquire the reason for this opinion!"
"Merely because it is neither one thing nor another. Not a capital, nor yet merely a provincial place; with something more than commerce in its bosom, and yet with that something hidden under a bushel. A good deal more than Liverpool, and a good deal less than London. Better even than Edinburgh, in many respects, and worse than Wapping, in others."
"You have been abroad, Mrs. Bloomfield?"
"Not a foot out of my own country; scarcely a foot out of my own state. I have been at Lake George, the Falls, and the Mountain House; and, as one does not travel in a balloon, I saw some of the intermediate places. As for all else, I am obliged to go by report."
"It is a pity Mrs. Bloomfield was not with us, this evening, at Mrs. Jarvis's," said Eve, laughing. "She might then have increased her knowledge, by listening to a few cantos from the epic of Mr. Dodge."
"I have glanced at some of that author's wisdom," returned Mrs. Bloomfield, "but I soon found it was learning backwards. There is a never-failing rule, by which it is easy to arrive at a traveller's worth, in a negative sense, at least."
"That is a rule which may be worth knowing," said the baronet, "as it would save much useless wear of the eyes."
"When one betrays a profound ignorance of his own country, it is a fair presumption that he cannot be very acute in his observation of strangers. Mr. Dodge is one of these writers, and a single letter fully satisfied my curiosity. I fear, Miss Effingham, very inferior wares, in the way of manners, have been lately imported, in large quantities, into this country, as having the Tower mark on them."